Farewell, Professor McGonagall
by Cyrano de Tucson
Summary: After her retirement, Professor McGonagall looks back on her life, and on her career at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
1. The Boy Batsman

Minerva McGonagall wasn't ill; she was simply old. Her doctor, young Grouchet, would say as much when he stopped in. "Nothing wrong with you, Professor, but time." Time. McGonagall had a lot of time, these days; she'd retired from her position as Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... even Dumbledore, in the end, hadn't been able to go on for ever, so why should she have expected to?

She had been unable to leave Hogwarts behind completely, though, and had taken a room in Hogsmeade. At first, she had walked to the Three Broomsticks everyday, but time had not been kind to her bones, and now, she didn't get out as often as she used to... not that she was ill; it was just a question of time.

Sometimes, she thought, she could almost see the flickering of light and darkness, as days ran away into the past, followed by nights, followed... One day, she stood under a tree, looking at it, seeing how green the leaves were in late summer. Was it late summer, already? Yes... there were children's voices from over the hill, and the crack of a bat, cheering.

Slowly, leaning heavily on her stick, McGonagall walked to the top of the hill, pausing just behind the ridge, watching without being seen. Cricket, they were playing. How strange, she thought. She hadn't seen cricket played since... how old had she been? Apollo, her older brother, with his great shock of blonde hair and his shoulders that had seemed as wide as the world to six-year-old Minerva.

Strange, how clear the memory was. Almost a ninety years ago, that had been, but she could remember it so clearly. She could remember Apollo laughing as he made his century... 139 not out, she remembered. How odd that she could remember that; could remember him picking her up and tossing her in the air, laughing, as the rest of the boys of the twenty-fifth highlanders had laughed. He was prickly, she remembered; his unshaven chin, his rough undershirt, the wool of his uniform kilt.

Apollo died at Tobruk. She'd looked it up on a map. That was before she'd gotten her letter; before she'd known she was a witch. How she'd wept when she learned the charm that would have saved her brother, how simple it was to turn a bullet, to make a bomb go someplace else instead. The charm that would have saved James... Minerva didn't know it.

She watched the children playing cricket. The boy batsman had the look of a Potter; the glasses, the red hair. She couldn't see from here, but she would bet he had green eyes. "Discipline is a delicate thing," Dumbledore had said to her, when she'd confessed to him that she didn't know what to do with James. "You must be firm, without crushing spirits." She'd taken that to heart; had made it her watch-word from then on. She wondered who this Potter boy was... James' great-grandson? Or great-great-grandson? How long...?

She smiled, remembering the good times, after Voldemort had finally been defeated. Dumbledore had retired, and she'd been made Headmaster. For a long time, there had been fewer and fewer children with magical aptitude. Then, suddenly, it had seemed like the Potters and the Weasleys had tried to reverse the trend without any other help. The castle had been full of red-headed cousins; it seemed that every class of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws had gone ginger.

"There are so many of them," Professor Coppersmith had complained to her, early in his first term as a Master at Hogwarts. "How do you ever keep them apart?"

"I knew their fathers," Minerva had said, "and their mothers. It is true that they all seem to be trying to out-do the family record for fecundity, but I see their parents when I look at them." She smiled, now, thinking about that. She thought of the Weasleys with the profusion of curls, most of whom had gotten themselves sorted into Ravenclaw. Their mother had been an excellent witch, brightest of her age; thank goodness they took after her, and not after their father.

The Potters, now... the Potters always seemed to go into Griffindor. They had paid for that; paid in terrible coin, over and over again. Minerva watched the boy batsman as he hit one for six, and she smiled, her eyes filling with tears as she thought of earlier Potters. The boy would be a good beater, she thought. He would be a first-class beater.


	2. Sailing on the Hot Wind Ocean

Dirty leaves sailed on the hot wind ocean, tacking and luffing up in their strange races down the side streets and alleyways of Hogsmeade. In a comfortable-looking Tudor house beside a short byway, an old, old woman sat beside the window, gazing out at the fallen leaves.

A younger woman came in, carrying a tray, and speaking. "Goodness, Professor, I don't know when I've seen such a hot day, so late in autumn! Why, they say some of the students from the school have gone swimming in the lake for a lark!"

Minerva smiled, and turned to look at her landlady, Mrs. Hudson. "You're too young to remember the first Tri-Wizard cup, when the Durmstrang students came in their sailing ship. There was a boy who swam in the lake in the middle of winter." She searched her memory. He'd been a little bit famous, that boy, and had created something of a stir, a few years later, when he'd objected at the wedding... it was no use, though. Minerva could picture his face, but couldn't remember his name.

She remembered the ship, though. Three masts, the rigging decayed and flapping in the wind. Apollo wouldn't have cared for that, she thought with a slight smile. She'd been... eight? The summer before he left. Yes, eight. They'd made the trip to Inverness, the whole family. There was a twelve-year gap between Apollo and Minerva; later, Minerva was to think that she'd been something of a surprise to her parents. Her father had business in Inverness, but Apollo was on leave. He'd carried her on his shoulders, and she remembered that; remembered being high above the crowds on the banks of Loch Ness, peering into the misty dawn, trying to see the Monster. She'd always put her hands on his chin when he carried her on his shoulders, so she didn't choke him. She remembered how prickly his chin always was.

He'd taken her sailing that day. The life vests were big, orange, and she felt like a puffer fish in one. He'd rented the little sail boat, and gone over ever inch of it before launching. "Ship-shape," he'd said, satisfied at last, as he stowed their lunch in a locker. "A place for everything, and everything in its place." It was one of their father's favorite sayings.

Tobruk was a port town, she recalled. That was why Rommel had been so desperate to take it. That was why England was so desperate to hold it. That was why Apollo had died there, along with so many other boys. Minerva shook her head slightly, watching the leaves sail along.

"Professor?" the younger woman asked, sounding concerned.

Minerva smiled at her. "Sorry," she said. "Sometimes, the past is clearer to me than the present. What was it you said?" It wasn't that her mind was weak, Minerva thought. She was as sharp as she'd ever been. It was just that there was so much more to think about, in the past. So much to consider, so much to weigh.

"I asked if that was the competition where that boy died?"

"Oh," said Minerva. "Yes. Cederic Diggory." She shook her head, and went back to looking out the window. There'd been nothing exceptional about Diggory, she thought. Loyal, brave, a good boy. She picked up the tea Mrs. Hudson had poured, and took a sip. Diggory had been involved with Miss Chang, Minerva recalled suddenly. They'd just taken up together. What a handsome couple they'd made, though, dancing together at the Yule Ball.

She'd danced with Ancelm, once. That was how things had started. They'd danced, awkwardly, self-consciously. He came from somewhere in the south, she remembered, and liked to sail. She'd leaned over the side, peering into the water for a glimpse of the merpeople, the day they'd gone sailing. She'd been so young then... as young as Miss Chang and Diggory.

Light glinted off a window across the street, throwing refracted shards. Just so, Minerva thought. Just so did the light glisten as she looked down, into the deeps. So they were swimming in the pond for a lark, were they? Well. Some things didn't change, after all.


	3. White Christmas

It was snowing. Big, heavy, wet flakes of snow fell slowly, blanketing the town of Hogsmeade. Slowly, a lone figure in black moved up the street in the dim light of a winter evening, one gloved hand clutching a staff. Minerva McGonagall would rather have been indoors at Mrs. Hudson's, reading a detective novel, or just curled up in her chair in front of the fire. Tonight, however, was Christmas Eve, and McGonagall had not missed a Christmas Eve dinner at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in over half a century.

How strange, she thought, watching her feet leaving holes in the white blanket of snow as she trudged up the hill towards the gates. She could remember the first Christmas Eve at Hogwarts... she'd been fifteen, and the terrors of the Great War were behind her; behind the country. There'd been that business with Grindlewald, and the poor girl who'd been turned to stone, but those things seemed far away in nineteen forty-seven. Armando Dippet had been headmaster then... and how strange, Minerva thought again, that she was probably the last person left alive who had a memory of Dippet at Hogwarts.

He had been fastidious, she recalled. Dinner with him presiding was quite different from what she'd known with Dumbledore. Like Albus, he'd arranged the small group around one table, but he'd seated them by house, in descending order of age. She remembered Ancelm sitting across from her, his hazel eyes alight with barely-suppressed mirth at the old boy's Victorian manners. When Professor Tester, the Potions Master, had suggested dancing, Dippet had hemed and hawed for a moment before deciding that it might be allowed.

The great stone gateposts with their statues of winged pigs loomed up out of the snow, and Minerva patted them as she passed through, like greeting an old and faithful hound. They'd stood here in silent faith for longer than McGonagall had been associated with the school, and there wasn't much that could make that claim.

Inside the gates, the Potter boy waited, a large umbrella held up. "Hello, Professor," he said. "The Head sent me down to make sure you were all right."

"Potter," she said with a nod, letting him fall in beside her, holding the umbrella over her.

"Oh," he said, looking confused. "Have we met?"

Minerva smiled slightly. "Never underestimate what an old witch knows, boy." She didn't stop walking up the road, kept magically clear of snow, between the mounded banks. So many of the old families sent their children, generation after generation. She'd had more influence over them than their own parents, she sometimes thought. The parents had their children for a couple of months each year; she'd had them most of the time.

Dumbledore had sent for her, when old Dippet retired. He'd read the papers she'd published, had followed her career with great interest. "I would like to offer you something more challenging," he'd said, and after a moment's hesitation, she'd accepted. She hadn't believed then that it would be more challenging, but because it was Dumbledore asking, she'd accepted. In the end, it turned out that the old boy was right... he so often had been. That was the year he'd admitted the werewolf, she recalled. Remus Lupin. Oh, those boys! Remus, Sirus, James... even poor Peter. Yes, she thought. Poor Peter, who had wanted so much to be a part of something bigger than himself, but had never quite worked out the right way. Peter and Draco, she thought. Two wizarding families who wouldn't be sending descendants anymore.

"Tell me, boy," Minerva said, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder and squeezing lightly, "how is your father?" She didn't listen to the answer, though, not really. She was too busy thinking about Dumbledore. As they walked up the steps of the castle, she realized that it was here... just here, outside the door, on an autumn night, that she'd met Albus Dumbledore for the first time. He'd looked so old to her, then, though his hair was still auburn... he'd been much younger than she was now. He had greeted them with quiet good humor, and led them, the first year students, into the great hall to be sorted into their houses, just as she, years later, would lead so many eager and frightened children through these doors.

She should have known, she thought. When they started asking her questions about the Morphus equations, she should have known what they were up to. Hadn't she started in the same place, when she worked out the Animagus transformation the first time? She'd gone to Dumbledore's office with Volsung's _My Year as a Wolf,_ and asked him about the equations. She should have known what they were doing.

It was the first time anyone had asked her that question, though, and she'd been an animagus so long that she'd forgotten how she started. Later, she would have known. Later, with experience of years and students, she would have known their carefully innocent looks were a sham, hiding excitement, hiding mischief. She'd had no more experience as a Master than they'd had as pupils, though, then.

"Ah, Albus," she said, so quietly the boy beside her couldn't hear her. If only she knew how to work the transformation that would make her younger again; the transformation that would make her joints stop hurting, would make her sleep through the nights.


	4. Valentine's Day Rain

The woman straightening the parlor was at an indeterminate age... young enough to still be considered young by the old, but old enough that the young considered her old. As she worked, she talked to the cat curled up on the hearthrug.

"Another Valentine's day," she was saying, "and a Hogsmeade visiting day for the students. Oh, things are sure to be busy at Madame Puddifoot's today!"

The cat yawned. She was an old cat, and some of her teeth were gone, but it was still a yawn to make a rodent nervously edge back into a hole. She put her chin back on her paws, and the square black markings around her eyes, which looked like spectacles, caught the light. Madame Puddifoot, the cat thought. That absurd tea room. This would be... what? The third owner since Puddifoot herself had owned it? Fourth, perhaps.

She could remember going there with Ancelm, in her own seventh year as a student. How awkward they had been, neither of them quite sure how to act, what to do. It was a different time... now, she'd heard, the students sometimes had to be separated before things could proceed too far for public decency; then... a touch of hands, a lingering gaze... these things had been enough to stir the blood of a young girl.

It had been their last Valentine's day as a couple, Minerva recalled. Three months later, they'd finished their NEWTs... Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests... and had parted, as they said, "just for the summer." But Professor Dumbledore had written her a letter to Balcoin College in Paris, and she'd had to go and talk to them, just to be polite, really, and before she knew it, there were classes and late-night discussions of transfiguration with other thaumaturgy students, and...

And it was Valentine's day before she knew it. She prepared a surprise; took the train to London to see him, bought tickets to see the Wimbourne Wasps, his favorite Quiddich team, playing against the Appleby Arrows. When she arrived in London, it was raining. She caught a cab to his flat, but in the end, she was the one surprised... surprised by the girl opening the door, surprised by the pet name the girl called him, surprised that he hadn't waited for her.

She'd sat in the rain that afternoon, watching the Quiddich game by herself, not even bothering with a bumbershoot charm. Gridpipe was aging, but still a powerful player. He'd won the game by catching the snitch when the Arrows were up by 130, and the Wasp fans went home cheered.

As she rode the train back towards France, McGonagall thought that she might catch pneumonia, wither and die, and _then_ he'd be sorry. She hadn't, though. She'd gone back to classes, gone back a little quieter, perhaps, but no one noticed.

She heard later that Ancelm married the girl. They'd been among the first to vanish, during Voldemort's rise to power.


	5. Leafing Out

Many witches preferred bright colors for their robes these days, but Minerva McGonagall was a traditionalist... and besides, she had said, when Mrs. Hudson suggested a nice, new, spring frock, she was too old to change, now. No, it was black robes for her, thank you, and if she used softening charms on them, well, who was to argue with an old woman's comforts? Her knees were hurting her as she walked up the road to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so she paused for a moment, leaning on her staff, and pretended to study a tree beside the road. The rest of the foot traffic moved on past her, and over her head, a young witch with a large bow tied on top of her head zipped past on what looked like a street sweeper's broom.

Minerva looked at a tree, chuckling to herself. The green buds of leaves were just beginning to open. Times changed; broom styles changed, she thought. She remembered Professor Xuan, the Defense Against the Dark Arts master she'd hired in her first year as Headmaster. The Vietnamese- Californian had been a challenge to hire... getting the Ministry to recognize his American TOAD (Total, Overarching Advanced Distinction) had been a hurtle, but the young man was a prodigy, and hadn't Albus always said they needed to open new, stronger international ties?

She remembered him running a hand through his short, spiky, dyed blonde hair at the end of Merka Quintaile's DADA OWL examination, in which she had answered every one of the questions correctly and exhaustively. It had been a NEWT level performance, Minerva remembered. "Miss Quintaile," the young professor had said, "it's cool that you know all the answers. Rocks my socks, dude, really. But you know... you gotta relax! Learn to surf or something! There's life outside of books!" Minerva had been pleased to attend their wedding, almost ten years later, at the sea shore.

Having regained her breath, Minerva resumed her walk, falling in with the others. Hogsmeade had swelled in recent years from a village to a small town, as more and more Wizards and Witches brought their families here. Minerva wasn't sure that was wise... was she the only one who remembered what Grindlewald had done to the Dutch wizards of Copenhagen, who had all lived in one neighborhood?

"Hullo, professor," piped a voice near her elbow, startling her out of her reverie. It was the Potter boy again. "The head sent me to make sure you got a good seat. If you'll just come this way?"

She followed him up the Gryffindor tower and settled on a bench. "It's Ravenclaw against Hufflepuff today," the Potter boy said. "My cousins Gaius and Caius are on the Ravenclaw side; they're twins!"

"Runs in your family, boy," she said, perhaps a little gruffly. How many Weasly twins had she seen over the years? At least six sets, she thought, not the least of them Eoin and Ian, when she was in school herself. She made herself comfortable. "What positions do they play?"

"Caius is a chaser," the boy said, excitedly, "and Gaius is the keeper. I'm going to be a beater, next year!"

Minerva nodded, not mentioning that she'd seen him play. "I imagine you will, if you put your mind to it." She remembered Harry as she'd first seen him on a broom, swooping down on the rememberall, pulling out of his dive inches above the ground, and she smiled.

Broomsticks, she thought. How often had she ridden hers through the worst kinds of Scottish weather, tossing a quaffle to a friend? She'd never made the house team, but she'd been enthusiastic; from her second year on, she'd been up for a pick-up game whenever she could find one. Ancelm hadn't understood that. "Look," he'd said, "I understand Dorleta spending all her time on the pitch; she wants to be a professional. But really, why do you do it? I mean," he'd coughed, and looked away, reddening slightly, "It's just not seemly, a woman riding around on a broomstick like that."

The match started, and Minerva watched with keen interest. The girls on the teams didn't seem at all concerned with how seemly their posture might be, and Minerva smiled, glad that this had changed in her lifetime. No one today would espouse such absurdity as asking witches to ride side-saddle, she thought. Heaven help them if they did.


	6. A Rain to Wash Away the Sins of the Worl...

It was raining. Big, heavy drops of rain that fell and fell and fell, and gave no sign of being tired of falling. It was a rain, Minerva McGonagall thought, that her mother would have said was there to wash away the sins of the world. McGonagall cradled the hot cup of tea in her hands, and felt mildly depressed. She could work a weather spell, she knew, and send the rain away, but another storm would be along in a little bit. She could work a pain charm, remove the ache of her joints... but it would just be a disguise, and in a while, the pain would be back. No; what she needed was sunshine, to bake the pain out of her bones, to dry her out.

Grouchet, her doctor, had said much the same thing in a quiet voice to Mrs. Hudson when he'd left. "Nothing really wrong with her, the old dear," he'd said, "but she's almost a century old. The human body..." He'd trailed off, shaking his head. McGonagall knew. Witches and Wizards didn't fall prey to the things that killed muggles... they had charms against bacteria, could spell away viruses, could transform the harmful into the helpful. But time... time still wore on them. If a Wizard wasn't killed by another of his own kind, he could expect the same century or so that a muggle could.

Unless, Minerva thought, the Wizard had the Elixir of Life. She'd seen Albus sip it once, at the beginning of her time at Hogwarts. She'd never had Flammel's skill at alchemy, though, and anyway, she'd seen the price Albus paid for his long life; had seen the care and worry eat at him like rot. "No," she said aloud, and Mrs. Hudson looked up from her knitting. Minerva shook her head, and Mrs. Hudson nodded.

Albus had needed to take the potion; Minerva understood that. Voldemort... Tom Riddle... had been unfinished business, business that Albus needed to see to completion. She hadn't Albus' influence, and Fudge hadn't had his wisdom. Only Albus could have seen the thing through. Minerva had no such unfinished business, she thought. None of the students of her time had turned into dark wizards... or if they had, they'd been much quieter about it than Grindlewald or Voldemort.

And, despite what some people taught to young children, muggle witch-hunts could be very dangerous indeed... so quiet was good. Minerva shuddered for a moment, thinking of things she'd read, of Wizards and Witches separated from their wands, held until potions wore off, standing enchantments grew dim, and then...

Thunder rolled, close by, and for a moment, Minerva was startled, remembering the blitz, the German airplanes flying over and dropping their eggs of death. They'd huddled in the Anderson shelter, she and her mother, listening to the concussions, wondering what they'd find when they came up again. She'd been in the Anderson shelter when the owl arrived, addressed to "Minerva McGonagall, Anderson shelter, back garden, No. 14 Argyle Way." Her Hogwarts letter had kept her busy, and her mother too, while the bombs fell. The owl had hopped from bunk to bunk, frustratingly unable to provide any more answers than were in the letter.

She'd written those letters, later. She'd tried to be more helpful to new muggle-born witches and wizards. Had tried to tell them how to find their way to suppliers for the things they'd need, how to find their way to the train. Still, every year, one or two wouldn't come. Minerva had always wondered if it was because they found the idea of witchcraft and wizardry daunting, or if they'd simply not been able to follow her directions. Then, too, once in a blue moon, one of the old families would send a child to a muggle school. One of the Longbottom boys had gone to... Eton? Or was it Harrow?

"He's a squib," Neville had said of his son, without shame. "He'll live in their world; I want to do the best by him I can."

It would be hard, Minerva thought. As a muggle child, she'd had no idea of the Wizarding world, of course; she could have lived her life without knowing, without missing it. As a Witch, she had been able to have the best of both worlds, had been able to move freely among muggles without suspicion. But it would be hard, to come from this world, where tea could be summoned with the wave of a wand, where things could be done with a wand and a will, and then, to enter the muggle world, where everything had to be _done_, the long way, the hard way.

"It's not good for her lungs," Grouchet had said to Mrs. Hudson. "I do wish she'd go someplace warm." But going someplace warm would mean leaving Hogwarts, and that was something Minerva was not able to do.

"Soon," she murmured, staring into the depths of her teacup. "I'll leave, soon."


	7. Of Wands and Men

Professor McGonagall leaned on her staff, looking out across the water of the lake. Up at the school, she knew, the students would have long since stopped paying attention to lectures, tantalized by the coming holidays. And, oh, what jokes they would play! She laughed, remembering Sirius Black's "to pee, or not to pee" reinterpretation of Hamlet's soliloquy, and later, in the great hall, the absurd potato phallus, and James Potter exclaiming, "Alas! Your dick, Horatio!"

Oh, she'd said hard words to the two of them, but afterward, in her office, she pictured Black holding the absurd potato phallus, and she'd laughed until tears streamed down her face. It was one of the things they had to be constantly on alert for, after all... teenagers being what they were, hormones running strong in them. Minerva remembered the time they'd discovered, the day after a snow storm, the ten-foot snow phallus with a Hufflepuff scarf tied neatly around it.

"Not a bad likeness," Professor Hooch, the Flying master, had said, as they studiously didn't look each other in the eye, and poor Professor Sprout had sighed, and demolished it with a wave of her wand, before bearing the scarf off to her House to give a lecture on propriety. Not that any of them had believed it was actually a Hufflepuff who'd built the thing... though you never knew, really.

Minerva knew she had not been the friendliest of the school's masters, but it often seemed that the girls would come to her, anyway, and ask certain questions. Minerva had made a habit out of having certain potion recipes, and certain charms always written out. She understood Professor Flitwick had done the same, and even Professor Snape, greasy unpleasant git that he was, never turned away a girl who needed a morning-after potion... though he was known to serve it up with a helping of scorn.

Minerva ran her hand lightly over the wood of her staff, checking for splinters. Wizards of the LeGuin school on Catalina Island, she remembered, used staves instead of wands. Professor Keaton had always maintained that wands were a crutch; that they were a focus for those whose magical language lacked precision... indeed, the Irish polyglot had never used a wand, that Minerva could recall.

He'd taught composition, and Latin, and any other language a student cared to learn, as well as the spells for understanding languages one didn't speak, or read. He'd also taught fencing, and when one of the other professors objected, had said only, "a sound mind in a sound body... and there are only so many spots on the Quiddich teams." Aside from which, he'd confided to Minerva privately, later, hadn't Godderic Gryffindor used a sword? "The pen," Keaton had said, on another occasion, "is mightier than the sword... but that's no reason not to study them both."

Harry Potter had come along after Keaton was gone, but Harry had pulled the Gryffindor sword from the sorting hat, and used it to defeat a basilisk. Minerva smiled, and shook her head, turning her back on the lake, and heading for the town of Hogsmeade. The joke was, Keaton had been head of Ravenclaw house, and no one had ever told of Rowena using a sword.


	8. An Unbearable Precision of Being

Something about the afternoon light slanting into the room made Minerva McGonagall think, as she woke from her nap, "I need to write the letters this afternoon." After a moment, she laughed at herself. The letters were Headmaster Hatcher's responsibility, now. Minerva patted the table beside her, searching for her glasses, then muttered, "Accio spectacles." They slid down from the top of her head, over her eyes, and Minerva sighed at herself. She was becoming as bad as Keaton, she thought with a smile.

Professor Keaton had been Languages Master when Minerva came to teach at Hogwarts. "Language," he had said, more than once, "is the basis of magic. You must be able to express what you want; if you are doing transformation, you must begin by describing what a thing is, and end by describing what you wish it to be. If you are not precise in your language, how can your results be precise?"

Keaton's language was precise. It was, perhaps, the only thing about the big Irish polyglot which was precise. In virtually everything else, the man was a slob. Minerva smiled as she thought of the way he would read as he ate, with the inevitable result that he would end up with food stains on his robes. His room in the castle had been full of books, quills and scraps of parchment used as bookmarks, but not a single page dog-eared, not a single spine cracked. The books had been piled in seemingly careless piles, but he knew where everything was; he could put out his hand and touch anything he wished.

They had gone on a picnic once, on a late spring afternoon, down by the lake, where they'd watched the students splashing around in the water, with the giant squid standing off and watching protectively. She had half-hoped it would turn out to be romantic, for Keaton seemed the sort who might burst into romance at any moment, but he'd seemed somewhat distracted. Later, she'd found the book he'd hidden in the basket, and realized that his mind had been on it the whole time.

Eventually, Minerva came to realize that books, words, and language were Keaton's true love, and that there was no room in his life for a second romance. He'd disappeared, a few years later. Many people suspected that he'd simply flown into the side of a tree while reading a book, until his body had been found, his insides carefully pulled out and pinned to the turf, each labeled with a bit of parchment. The handwriting, Minerva recalled, had been exceptionally precise.

It was the first time Minerva had heard the name "Lord Voldemort" whispered. The Ministry investigator, however, ruled that it was an accident, a spell Keaton had horribly mis-handled. "Everyone knows he never used a wand," the investigator had said, superciliously. Looking back, Minerva wished the investigator been correct.


	9. Girls and Boys

It was a hot day; the kind of day when, Noel Coward had said, only mad dogs and Englishmen went out in the noonday sun. Even the insects were lying low, in shady homes out of the sun. Minerva McGonagall sat under an oak tree on a hill, overlooking a flock of sheep. Unlike most sheep, these had wool of bright primary colors, a sure sign that they belonged to a Wizard family. Minerva was reading, a detective novel. It was one she'd read before, though, several times, and the actions of the mustachioed Belgian sleuth weren't really holding her attention.

Far off, there was a scream, and Minerva's head snapped up, her heart beating faster as she reached for her staff... but no, she thought with a sigh of relief, it wasn't a scream. It was only the steam whistle of the train pulling towards Hogsmeade station. Minerva laughed at herself. "Silly old bat," she said, settling herself again, trying to find the page she'd been reading. "Only the train."

"Do not think," Albus had said, when Minerva was a third year student at Hogwarts, and he was the Transfiguration master, "that knowing the name of a thing means that you know what the thing is." At 14, that had seemed a revelation to her. She had spent weeks making up new names for common things, to prove to herself that names were only labels, and that labels had only the power people gave them.

"Hand me the snicker-snockers," she had said to Seraphimia Shacklebolt, pointing at the plate of cheese toast one night at dinner. The black girl had stared at Minerva, shaken her head, and passed it.

"Honestly, Minerva," she'd said, "I don't see why you don't just write Dumbledore a love letter, and get it over with. You could even write it in this silly language you've invented, and he'd never know."

How Minerva's cheeks had burned! After that, she'd refrained from using her own names for things... at least in public. She'd never written Albus a love letter, either... then, or later, during all the years they were masters together at the school. But her memory of that snide comment had come back to her, years later, when Tangela Wyberg had brought her Quenella Loveguard's notebook, with the girl's translations of Sappho's poems, and the surprisingly imaginative drawings of McGonagall herself.

Minerva had given Wyberg a lecture on respecting the privacy of other girls, and on betrayal of trust, before assigning her a week's worth of detentions. Wyberg had muttered about the betrayal of trust having Loveguard in her dormitory was; had used a name... but she had let the matter drop when Minerva glared at her. Later, the professor arranged to have one of the house elves discretely return the notebook to Loveguard's trunk.

When, a few years later, Shannon Keough had lined up to go up to the boy's side of the dormitory on her first night in Gryffindor tower, Minerva had at first thought she was another like Loveguard. Albus, however, had shaken his head. "Gender dysphoria, the muggles call it," he'd said, gravely. "Poor things, they think that naming something means understanding it." He had sighed, stroking his long beard. "We must respect the family's wishes, of course," he'd added after a pause, and that was that... for a few years, anyway.

Keough had turned out to be surprisingly good at transfiguration, and in her fifth year, she'd come to McGonagall for help. It was the hardest spell McGonagall had ever guided a student through, harder even than the animagus spells, but Keough's will had driven her on. As Sean Keough, he'd taken a NEWT in transfiguration, and left Hogwarts as a charming young man. McGonagall had taught his son as well, though the boy had none of the father's amazing skill at transfiguration... perhaps because he'd not shared the father's motivation.

Minerva sighed, and closed her book. No, she thought, knowing a thing's name was not the same as knowing what a thing was. She picked up her staff, and used it to lever herself into a standing position, awkwardly. She had known the word 'arthritis,' for instance, as a young woman, but it wasn't until it had come on her that she'd really understood it. Slowly, McGonagall walked home. What, she wondered, had happened to Loveguard? Those drawings... they really had been quite imaginative.


	10. Gun Wizard

It wasn't a heavy rain, just a persistent one. It was, in fact, barely more than a mist, really, but it had been going on and on for days, and Minerva McGonagall found it easier to sit inside, by the fire, and read her novel, than to venture outside. From the other room, Minerva could hear the sound of Mrs. Hudson's crystal ball, currently tuned to the Gnome Gnews Gnetwork. In dry, received standard English devoid of regional inflection, a voice droned on about low pressure systems and hydrographic loading.

In Minerva's novel, an Old West Gun Wizard looked down on the corpse of the man he'd been pursuing for three hundred pages. As he holstered his ensorcelled six shooter, he looked at the bar tender, and spoke the first words he'd said in over a hundred pages: "He needed killing." It was rubbish, Minerva knew. As much as American schoolboys idolized the strong, silent type, so few of them seemed to grow up to embrace the archetype. And, really... when had a wizard ever used any weapon other than a wand?

Well, Minerva was forced to admit, there was von Ravenstein, but he was widely acknowledged to have been a bit of a nutter. And Goderic Gryffindor, founder of Minerva's own House at Hogwarts, had carried a sword... but in those days, most Gentlemen did.

Still turning over the idea of a Gun Wizard, Minerva reread the line. "He needed killing." Wouldn't it be nice, Minerva thought with a sigh, slipping a finger in between pages to mark her place, if that were a defense. Dolores Umbridge came to her mind, the witch's toad-like face smiling unpleasantly. From the day Umbridge had arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she had needed killing. Minerva laughed, remembering how, for years afterward, anyone trying to derail Umbridge at the ministry had needed only to make hoof-sounds with their tongue.

After a moment, though, Minerva sighed. Yes, she thought, Umbridge had needed killing. Minerva could have done it; she knew the unforgivable curses, could feel the hate required to perform them, every time she looked at the toady little witch. On the other hand, Minerva, left to her own devices, would have killed Severus Snape early on. How she would have loved to watch him squirming in pain, sometimes. The man was a bully, abusing his position and tormenting those with no power to fight back. He was also, Minerva admitted, highly gifted at potions, and had been instrumental in Voldemort's eventual downfall.

It was possible, Minerva admitted, that one could not judge the worth of a life until it was over. Peter Pettigrew, for example... Minerva laughed to herself, remembering the career counseling session where young Mr. Pettigrew had described his life's ambition as becoming a chef... based upon his skill in preparing toast. He had been such a nobody his whole life, right up to the end... but then, in the last minute, how he had made up for it! Peter Pettigrew, Minerva thought, and Draco Malfoy.

Minerva had another laugh, remembering when the impostor Professor Moody had transfigured Malfoy into a ferret and treated him like a rubber ball. She had been indignant at the time, but looking back on it, maybe it was no less than the boy deserved. After all, he was the one who... Minerva shook her head. No matter, she said to herself sternly. This was what divided the Dark Wizards from the rest of them, she thought. Yes, it would have been simple enough to kill Umbridge. It would have been simple enough to turn her into the toad she so resembled, and let her, over time, slowly lose the woman's mind, let it be engulfed in the animal mind, let her develop a taste for flies and other crawling insects.

It would have been simple, but it would not have been right. Admittedly, Umbridge had done nothing of any great worth with the balance of her life, but she might have. If Peter Pettigrew had been killed in the street by Sirius Black on that terrible night, he could never have turned hero in the last act.

Albus, Minerva recalled, was a great believer in second chances. Voldemort was not. Albus had let other people make choices; had informed and guided, and hoped for the right choice. Voldemort had forced choices; had decreed and punished, intimidated and controlled. Perhaps, Minerva thought, that was the base of being a Dark wizard... not trusting anyone else to see as clearly as one did, oneself; making that one, fateful decision to force others to behave according to one's own standards.

Perhaps it was in that one decision, the one that led to the declaration, "he needed killing."


	11. First Night

It was first night. The scarlet steam engine had pulled into Hogsmeade station only moments before, and now the children were starting to stream out of compartments. Minerva McGonagall sat in the shadows of the station, watching. She could remember so many first nights, over so many years. She watched as Professor Coppersmith, no longer so young as she remembered him, moved through the crowd with quiet elegance. "First years, follow me, please," he said, unfailingly polite.

She remembered her own first year, during the Second World War. Her mother had talked of sending her to Canada, where so many children had been sent to keep them safe, to ensure the survival of families. Instead, she'd come to the safest place in Britain, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hagrid, still a young man but already huge, had bellowed, "First years, over here, first years!"

She could remember how excited, how scared she had been, on her own first night, as she followed Hagrid. She hadn't known him then, hadn't known about giants except as fairy-tale creatures, hadn't known what the man's size meant. There had been families in those days, too, she recalled. Ian and Eoin Weasley had been popular, funny, and a couple of years older than she was. Heather Madley was in Minerva's year, and her older brother Stephen was three years older. That strange Wooster boy, the Hufflepuff who'd barely managed to get Acceptables in his OWLs their fifth year had a cousin, Yaxley, who didn't seem to be much brighter. Salt of the Earth, though, Wooster and Yaxley.

Minerva watched a girl with an elegant French plait following after Coppersmith, her eyes big as she watched the horde of red-headed Weasleys and Potters pouring out of one train car, saw the girl's double-take as one of the children changed from the ginger-haired norm to blonde so pale it picked up color from the station's slightly blue lights. A Lupin, Minerva thought... the metamorphmagus talent showed up in that family still, from time to time. Minerva felt sympathy for the girl with the plait, on the outskirts of that crowd, not knowing what was to come.

Minerva hummed to herself, a tune that had been popular in the castle a generation before. "There's a girl in Hufflepuff," went the lyrics, "who says that forty-seven ginger-headed Weasleys sounds like heaven to her." There had never been forty-seven Weasleys at the castle at once, of course, but sometimes it had seemed like it.

Minerva noticed a small girl with hair so black it seemed to gleam blue where the light hit it. She was looking around her with what looked like suspicion, wary of everyone and everything. She was also, Minerva noticed, clinging to a long, thin, bundle as if it were a life preserver. "A Snape," Minerva thought, then, noticing the girl's Asiatic features, "or a Chang?"

When Professor Coppersmith came striding along, though, he addressed her with, "Miss Doe, you can leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken care of."

The girl looked at him as if he were trying to steal from her, then answered, "it's not luggage."

Coppersmith raised an eyebrow, and looked as if he were about to object, but Minerva coughed, and he looked over at her. She shook her head, and Coppersmith paused, then nodded. "Very well, Miss Doe," he agreed, "over here with the others, please."

Things would sort themselves out, Minerva thought. She remembered when little Luna Lovegood had shown up at the steps of the castle, her eyes large, suspicious, clutching a stuffed... goodness, Minerva thought with a silent laugh, what /had/ that thing been? Some made-up monster, anyway. The girl had seemed too old for such things, but she'd carried it for most of the year, before deciding on her own that she didn't need it anymore.

"There are things you can change, Professor McGonagall," Dumbledore had said to her, her first year of teaching, "and things you can not. It helps if you can laugh at the things you can not change; it will save you a great deal of weeping."

Whatever Miss Doe was carrying, Minerva thought, it wasn't any worse than what the castle had weathered before. A thousand years, the school had stood, and every one of them had been a first year for someone.


	12. Insomnia

The night was filled with sound, if you listened closely. From the mantlepiece came the quiet click-click-click of a clock, almost (but not quite) perfectly matched by the clicks of the wristwatch on the night stand. Both had been made by the Tickes family, half a century apart. From various pictures came soft breathing as the inhabitants slept. How long, Minerva McGonagall wondered, had she slept in rooms full of other people? When did it happen that she simply became accustomed to two-dimensional "people" watching her, talking to her?

She listened to the sound of the ticking. Her watch, custom ordered for her by a friend, long ago, was decorated with a lion... the lion of Gryffindor; the lion of Scotland. The clock might as well have been a muggle artifact, except that she had never, in over seventy-five years, wound it. "Entrain," she thought, then was surprised by the word. What did it mean? She searched her memory, then found the meaning... when two clocks lived side by side, they would come to beat at the same instant; their movements would entrain. "Hyugens," she thought, and then, "seventeenth century... late."

Minerva smiled in the darkness. Imagine describing clocks as "living side by side." What was the name of that Muggle psychologist who claimed that animism was a stage healthy children outgrew? In the wizarding world, many people never outgrew the idea that everything had a spirit... after all, didn't paintings talk to you? Didn't broomsticks behave as if they knew their rider's preferences, after a couple of years of riding? So why not describe clocks as living side by side?

It wasn't only clocks that entrained, Minerva thought. People did it, too. She thought of the castle, of Hogwarts, and what would be happening there, now. She fumbled for her watch, looked at it. Obligingly, it lit up for her, the numerals glowing softly. Just past three in the morning. Now, up at the castle, only the house-elves would still be awake, scurrying about silently as they cleaned up behind the students. And the ghosts, of course. "The dead," nearly headless Nick had told her once, "do not sleep. Having denied death, her brother's realm is closed to us, also."

Another hour, and it would be only the ghosts. Then, at five, the morning house-elves would begin stirring, beginning the morning's cooking. By six, the masters and the early risers among the students would be up. Showers would be taken. Teeth brushed. By seven, clean uniforms would be being put on, and the sluggards among the students would be waking.

By eight, everyone would be in the Great Hall, eating, except for those few who were cramming for tests today. By nine, classes would begin.

The students, the masters... all would do these things without thinking, as if they were afloat on a tide, pulled by the moon. Rise, fall. Rise, fall. Day following day, week, month, year... century.

Albus had been an important headmaster, Minerva knew. He had shaped the future of the school. So many of them, though, herself included, had simply been caretakers, entrusted with the sacred responsibility of ensuring that there would be a Hogwarts School for the next generation, and the one after that. There was no shame in being a caretaker; no shame in fulfilling the trust placed in her. She wondered if Headmaster Hatcher understood the trust; understood the implications.

There was a portrait of McGonagall in the headmaster's office. It was an image of her, as she'd been in the early years of her own occupancy of that office. An image of her body, of her mind, of her self. She wondered if Hatcher ever looked to it for advice, as she had looked to Albus' portrait after he was gone.

She should update it, she thought. She should share with the portrait the things she had learned since it was painted. It was strange to think it, but she'd been so young, then; only seventy. Minerva listened to the soft breathing of her pictures, and smiled. So long as Hogwarts stood, she thought, her picture would be next to Albus'. Perhaps, over time, they would entrain.


	13. 100, Not Out

Tiny flakes of dry snow were borne on the wind, but they weren't sticking; weren't accumulating. Slowly, Minerva McGonagall climbed the steps of the easternmost Quidditch observation gallery tower, pausing for breath after each flight. As she stood, breathing heavily, a group of young girls raced up the steps towards her, giggling together, their long scarves flying with their haste.

One of them saw McGonagall, and the whole group stopped as if hit by an impediment hex. "Sorry, Professor," they muttered, one by one, and filed past her. The last one, the first-year McGonagall had heard Coppersmith call Miss Doe, looked at her for a long moment, before addressing her. "You're Professor McGonagall," she said, not asking but telling.

"I hope so," Minerva answered, still out of breath. "I'm wearing her robes."

"That was a joke," the girl said. Again, it was a statement, not a question. Minerva nodded, not having the breath to spare for talking. "All right," the girl said, then she turned, and ran on up the steps, after her friends.

Minerva climbed the last flight, and found an empty seat. A quick transfiguration changed the wooden bench into a comfortable cushion, and a bumbershoot charm kept the blowing snow granules off her.

"Welcome to today's Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor!" the student announcer called, his voice amplified by a Sonorus charm. "With no further ado, I give you the sides! For House Ravenclaw: Casbolt! Underhill! Digweed! Weasley! Weasley! Forthingay-Phipps! and Millborow! For Gryffindor: Azo! Potter! Aggas! MacNeill! Biggerstaff! Watson! and Weasley!"

McGonagall watched the youngest Potter boy as he flew, using his bat to good effect against the two bludgers. She remembered watching him play cricket, and smiled. She had made her century, now, she thought, wryly. One hundred, not out. How many more runs, though, before the bowler took her wicket? Surely not many.

She remembered other Quidditch games, other groups of youngsters chasing the balls around the pitch. Dorleta Spidell had been thirteen when she made the house reserve team, in Minerva's third year as a student. Minerva watched the game, still focusing on the most recent Potter addition. He was twelve, she thought, which was young to be on the team, but then, that, too, ran in his family.

Every team she had ever watched, sitting here in these stands, she thought, had ranged between eleven and eighteen years of age. How many years was that? Almost ninety, if you just counted from the first time, but there had been a gap between her seventh year and her return as a master, and gaps now and then when Quidditch was put on hold for the year for one reason or another. More than fifty years worth of Quidditch, anyway, she thought, clapping as one of the Weasley twins put the quaffle through a Gryffindor

hoop. More than fifty years, and she could see, when she looked in the mirror, each of them written on her skin. More than fifty years, and they, the players, were still the same age. It wasn't fair, she thought. Individuals grew older, grew old, died... but the students, like the school itself, were eternally young, eternally the center of the world, eternally... eternal.


	14. A Fighting Chance

"...And now, she's started a club for something called 'kem-dew.' I went in, and the lot of them were just flailing around at each other with sticks, screaming like lunatics!"

Minerva McGonagall looked up. Had she been asleep? She looked around. Professor Copersmith was speaking, looking somewhat irritated, and several of the other masters were nodding agreement. Hatcher had given her the seat closest the fire, had taken the next; was now looking thoughtful.

"Kendo," McGonagall corrected. "The o is long. And they were yelling because that's part of the rules... you have to say where you hit before you do."

Coppersmith turned towards her with a look of surprise. "You know about this... sport?"

"Oh, aye," McGonagall nodded. She hadn't thought about Japan in a long time, though. She'd gone to Africa with some of the witches from Balcoin College, part of a project they'd jokingly called "Witches for Peace." She'd met a man there, a Japanese wizard named Mishima Ryoko, who would tune his crystal ball to follow Kendo competitions at home.

"Who is teaching it, now?" McGonagall asked, though she had a good idea.

"Aia Doe," Coppersmith replied. "The bane of my existence." There were sympathetic chuckles from around the room, and Minerva looked around. Half of the Masters in the room were people she'd brought in; the rest had come under Hatcher. Coppersmith saw her look, and explained, "A first-year Gryffindor, Headmaster. The girl is entirely too smart for her own good. She can do any spell after it's shown her once, and she has very... odd... ideas."

McGonagall chuckled. "I have," she said dryly, "known a few girls who were entirely too smart for their own good, Professor Coppersmith. I _was_ a girl who was entirely too smart for my own good. I have, however, found that most often when someone says that of a girl, what they really mean is that the girl is entirely too smart for their comfort, which is not the same thing, at all."

A chuckle ran around the room, and several of the witches nodded. "Kendo is a good sport," Minerva said. "It hones the reflexes, sharpens the mind. Not everyone can play Quidditch, you know, though I find it to be the best of sports."

"Well," Coppersmith said, at a loss for a moment, then, "but it's about _swords_, and _fighting._ That's not really the sort of thing we ought to be encouraging here at Hogwarts."

Minerva looked at the slight, dapper man disappointedly for a long moment. "What is it you teach, Professor?" she asked.

Coppersmith looked flummoxed; McGonagall had hired him herself. Headmaster Hatcher said, as if suspecting that the old woman's memory was going, "Professor Coppersmith teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, Minerva."

McGonagall's memory was not slipping. She looked at Coppersmith with her cool blue eyes, waiting for him to make the connection. As if reading her mind, the professor coloured. "Yes," he said, "but that's _different_, isn't it? I mean, really... mixing it up with a sword, that's not the sort of thing a wizard ought to do!"

McGonagall felt around for her staff, used it to lever herself to her feet. "In Gryffindor tower, Professor Coppersmith, there is a portrait of Goderic Gryffindor. May I suggest that you go and ask him what a wizard should know of the sword? In Ravenclaw's tower, you might ask Professor Keaton. As for fighting, I find that fighting is fighting, sir, whether the weapons used are picks and hoes, or wands. If Miss Doe believes that she needs to know how to fight... well... who am I to tell her differently?"

There was silence in the room as McGonagall made her way to the door, leaning on her staff. "Good night, Headmaster," she said, turning at the door to look back. "Masters. Thank you for a very pleasant Christmas Feast."

Murmured responses came from around the small room, and McGonagall looked at Coppersmith again. "Perhaps," she said, remembering Alistor Moody, "if more of us practiced constant vigilance, and prepared for coming fights, we would not have such troubles with the Grindlewalds and the Voldemorts."


	15. An Age of Isolation

The old tabby cat making herself comfortable in the windowsill was mostly grey now, her markings faded over the years. She lay with her chin on her folded paws, looking out the window, watching water drip from a large, melting icicle.

"It is an age," the cat thought, "of isolation."

The cat laughed at herself, silently. What had brought on that thought? Why, even now, she could hear Mrs. Hudson's crystal ball, tuned to the Gnome Gnews Gnetwork. In the parlor, two of the portraits were having a discussion about the latest scandal in Government, while overhead, the young wizards Mrs. Hudson had hired to have a look at the roof discussed the condition of the water-repelling spells woven into the thatch.

And yet, McGonagall thought. In another time, people had walked from room to room to speak to each other, instead of sending ætherscriber messages. In the past, people had believed in the _art_ of writing letters; had not dashed off two lines without thought for spelling, or conscience expression of ideas.

The cat sighed. Perhaps, she thought, she was just getting old. She watched water drip from the melting icicle, and remembered a letter she'd written, an angry letter, to Ancelm. She'd never sent it. She'd sat down, and written it in that awful little garret she'd had in Paris that year, all of her hurt and anger poured out in beautiful prose. How she'd slaved over that letter... and then, when it was finished, when it was the model of anger and hurt and betrayal put in words, she had tossed it in the fire.

There were things in her life that Minerva McGonagall regretted. Sometimes, when she was thinking of something else entirely, the memory of some unkind word she'd spoken, some thoughtless thing she'd done, would come floating up, and she would feel again the chagrin, the embarrassment of the thing. "How could I have done that," she would think, embarrassed.

The cat stretched, and yawned. It was the price of having a conscience, she supposed. It was what set people like her apart from people like Voldemort. She could not imagine the thing that Tom Riddle had become, waking up in the middle of the night to face the memory of the people he had killed, the lives he had destroyed; could not imagine him wondering, "did I really do that? How could I have been so _stupid?"_

Mrs. Hudson walked through the room. "Tea in a moment, Headmaster," she said.

Minerva stood, transforming back to her normal, Human, self. "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," she said, and she smiled. "Why don't you invite those nice young men in?"

Mrs. Hudson nodded. "I think I will," she answered.

Minerva smiled. So long as there was tea in England, she thought, no one would be completely isolated.


	16. Families of All Stripes

Minerva McGonagall sat near the small stone house which had once been Rubius Hagrid's. There was an easel and a canvas in front of her, but she had not opened her paints; the canvas was blank. Minerva's attention was on the lawn... she had forgotten that today was end-of-term; had forgotten that the summer hols started today.

The Potters and the Weasleys were gathered on the lawn, four generations of red hair and freckles, bustling about, picking up the belongings of the current students, parents and grandparents pointing out landmarks and telling stories. McGonagall smiled, watching them, then turned her head slightly at a sound from behind her.

"There are a lot of them," a girl's voice said, without emotion.

"Yes," said McGonagall, nodding.

"They're taking a trip together, to the West Indies," the voice went on. The girl came up even with McGonagall, and Minerva was unsurprised to see that it was Miss Doe.

"I've never been to the West Indies," Minerva said, looking back at the group, remembering each of them as they had been when they were students, remembering attending weddings, receiving birth announcements, attending funerals.

"I have," Miss Doe answered. "My father was... stationed... there."

Minerva heard the hesitation, but ignored it. "My brother was in the Army," she said, instead. She smiled, remembering Apollo's pride in the regimental kilt, how he had seemed to fill her view as he picked her up, tossing her in the air, settling her on his shoulder.

Miss Doe was still looking at the Potters and Weasleys. "I don't have a brother," she said. "I don't really have a family."

Minerva nodded, and looked at the blank canvas in front of her. She could sketch on it, she thought, she could paint the sketch. She could paint the life she hadn't led, and bring it to life... limited, two-dimensional life, but life anyway. She could paint her wedding to Ancelm, or poor Professor Keaton, or, if she were feeling particularly given to fantasy, to Albus. She could paint their children, their grandchildren, their family.

But it would never be true outside of the painting. "When I first came to Hogwarts," she said, reflectively, "I felt like an orphan. My family were muggles, you see, and my brother was far away, fighting a battle in Africa. But I walked into the great hall, and I saw the Lion waiting for me. I walked to the front of the hall, and when they put the sorting hat on my head, I told it I wanted to be in the house of the Lion." The old lady chuckled, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I think few students are bold enough to _tell_ the hat what house to put them in... but apparently, it agreed with me."

Miss Doe looked at the old woman. "And now, you'll tell me they became your family."

Minerva nodded. "In a way," she said, "they did. When I look at that passel of children down there, I see my brothers and sisters in their children, their grandchildren."

Miss Doe looked back at the crowd on the lawn, now beginning to board brooms and circle, before heading west, towards the transit centre in Edinburgh. "I think," she said, quietly, "I would rather have a real family."

McGonagall smiled, and uncapped a tube of paint. Even the prolific Weasleys had never had more than ten children each, she thought. Minerva had had thousands, boys and girls, loving and troublesome, bright and dim. No, she had not missed anything, making the choices she had. She had loved all her children, she thought; sometimes the troublesome ones most of all.


	17. Change

Minerva McGonagall awoke with a start. It was almost autumn, and she hadn't even begun the two rolls of parchment Professor Dumbledor had assigned on transmogrification! As her heart slowed, the years between then and now came rushing back to her, and she laughed. Eighty years and more it had been since she'd done homework for Dumbledore, but the oldest dreams didn't let go. She laughed again at the thought that she would have let a transfiguration assignment sit undone at until the last minute.

McGonagall pulled up the heavy quilt around her shoulders, and thought back to her early days as a student at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. She'd come to Hogwarts with mixed feelings... fear over the war, fear for her parents, grief for her brother's death. But mixed in had been hope that school would be different; that here was a place where she could just be. Two great discoveries had fed that hope, her first year.

The first had been the Great Hall; more specifically, the food in the Great Hall. The School, she realized, was willing to house her and feed her... and all they asked in return was that she study. That requirement was made easier by her second discovery: magic could change things!

McGonagall had needed change; the world had needed change. The handsome, charming Transfiguration professor hadn't hurt her desire to study that subject. She'd dived in, learned all she could. Later, she'd participated in the Witches for Peace project, in Africa, and she'd realized that change on a real level... not the change of a rat into a goblet, or a raven into a writing desk, but real, substantial change... was slow.

The old witch rolled in bed, and looked at her window, at the moonlight coming into her room. In the wan, pale light, she could see the picture she'd painted of Hogwarts. The moon was up over the castle, just as it was out the window. She watched the castle in the picture. Someone was awake, she saw, as a light moved among the windows of the north wing. McGonagall's eyes traveled over the castle, seeing the core of the old Saxon fort, and the additions of later centuries. She smiled. Change, she thought.

Her first discovery had not been entirely accurate. In later years, as Headmaster at Hogwarts, her perspective had changed as she managed the school's finances. She knew what the school charged, how provisions were made for poor families, and donations solicited from old students who had no children of their own at the school. She had worked hard to ensure that current students had no more idea of those details than she had. It was part of the school's magic.

McGonagall's eyelids drooped. Change, she thought. How many generations had she taught, she wondered. How many minds had she changed? How much change had she wrought? Had she made a difference?


	18. The Next Great Adventure

Late afternoon sunlight poured in through the window. It had gotten colder over the last few days, too cold to snow. Minerva McGonagall sat in a chair in the parlor, drowsing in front of the fire.

"Professor?" called Mrs. Hudson, the landlord. "Professor, it's Christmas day."

McGonagall looked up, and nodded, fumbling in her pocket for her watch. She opened it, then felt her head for her glasses. "Oh," she said. "I should be going." She closed the watch, restored it to her pocket, and looked at the fire. She'd go in a moment, she decided. No one would notice if she was late, and it was easier to sit here in front of the fire.

So many years of Christmas dinners at Hogwarts, she thought. She smiled, remembering the friends, the students, the students who had become friends. She remembered the food, and the decorations. How many generations had passed through Hogwarts? A thousand years, she though, and tried to figure it out... four generations per century, more or less...

Somewhere in the middle of carrying numbers, she drowsed off again. Someone coughed, and Minerva looked up, saw the Potter boy... what was his name? "Mr. Potter," she settled. "Shouldn't you be at the castle?" Was he a third-year already?

"Professor," he said, smiling. "The headmaster noticed you weren't at school. He's holding dinner until you get there."

"Oh," said McGonagall. She fumbled for her staff, then discovered that young Potter was holding it out to her. She stood, took her cloak from the young man. They walked out into the snow, and Minerva gasped in surprise.

"What's this?" she asked.

Potter grinned. "A sedan chair," he said, sliding open a door, and revealing a comfortable, warm tiny room. The Weasley boys... red hair, freckles, laughter... were at either end of the chair poles, wands out. McGonagall, laughing, climbed into the chair, and slid the door closed.

"Winguardium Levioso!" the Weasley boys called in concert, swishing and flicking the chair into the air. By broom, the trip to the castle was quick. Minerva climbed out in the warmth of the great hall. "Come here, Potter," she said, and put her hand on his shoulder to support herself as they walked to the head table.

As she seated herself at the main table, Minerva looked around in surprise. The hall was busy, she saw with a start. There, at the Gryffindor table, was young James Potter, with his friends Pettigrew and Black. There was Lilly Evans, lifting a cup in salute, a smile on her face. And at the Ravenclaw table, was that Professor Keaton, explaining something with his steak knife gesturing in the air? How young he looked! There was young Mr. Malfoy, smirking at something Ms. Drakkin was saying, leering at her almost.

With difficulty, Minerva tore her attention away from the room full of people, and concentrated on the head table. Professor Coppersmith was looking at her oddly; so was Headmaster Hatcher.

"Minerva," said Hatcher, "are you quite well?"

"Yes," said Minerva, looking back out at the hall. "So kind of them all to come." A tear ran down her cheek. There... in the door... was it? Yes. Albus, looking young and vigorous, walking between the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables... patting young Diggory on the shoulder.

"Hello, my old friend," Albus said, stopping in front of the table. "It is time."

And McGonagall realized that he was right. It _was_ time. The years seemed to fall away from her at once, and she rose, leaving her staff beside her chair. She wouldn't need it anymore, she knew.

As if from a long distance away, she heard Hatcher call, "Headmaster!" But the children were standing, as she took Albus' hand, and walked back between the tables, and somehow, Hatcher didn't seem important any more.

"What's it like?" she asked, looking at Albus.

He laughed. "It is," he said, "the next great adventure."


	19. Annotations

Annotations and End Notes for _Farewell, Professor McGonagall_:

First of all, I'd like to express my profound gratitude to Ms. J. K. Rowling, without whom, none of us would have a sandbox to play in. I'd also like to thank Mr. Jim Dale, whose semi-voiced reading of the Harry Potter books has heavily influenced the way I understand them.

As a whole, this fiction owes as much to John Milton's _Goodbye, Mr. Chips_ as it does to Harry Potter. If you haven't read it, please allow me to highly recommend it. Mr. Milton said that he was highly influenced, in his writing, by his father's career as a master at a British public school. In my writing, likewise, I have been highly influenced by my mother's career as a teacher in American public schools... which are a completely different animal, I assure you.

In my portrayals of age, I have drawn upon my memories of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Because of odd family circumstances, I was gifted with more than two grandmothers; sadly, all are no longer with us.

1. The Boy Batsman:

Cricket is a real-world game, played by muggles throughout the world... including America. If you've never been exposed to it, I recommend a web search for your nearest cricket league.

Likewise, the siege and investiture of Tobruk was a real battle in World War Two. Thousands of young men, mostly New Zealanders, Australians, and Germans, gave their lives there. Though I have arbitrarily placed Apollo's unit, the Twenty-Fifth Highlanders, there, there were Scots units present.

And yes, I know, neither James nor Harry Potter had red hair. However, Lily Evans-Potter did, and I don't think it too far to reach to believe that, if Harry married Ginny Weasley, their children would be ginger-haired, too.

2. Sailing on the Hot Wind Ocean:

The name of McGonagall's landlady, Mrs. Hudson, of course, is taken from Sherlock Holmes.

This seems like a good place to discuss McGonagall's age. I know that J. K. Rowling has said, in interviews, that McGonagall is older than I've made her here, but the wonderful actress who portrays the character in the films, Ms. Maggie Smith, was born in December, 1934, and I don't see any good reason not to use this as a base. I've adjusted it slightly... put McGonagall's birth in 1932... because I wanted her to be old enough to remember her brother; old enough to remember World War Two.

This has required some juggling of times and events. Hagrid, for instance, is shown as being older than McGonagall, because we know he was present for the original opening of the Chamber of Secrets... an event I've placed before McGonagall's time as a student. And yes, I know, in Order of the Phoenix, McGonagall tells Umbridge she's taught at Hogwarts for 39 years, which doesn't square with my bringing her in the same year that the Mauraders enter Hogwarts, but hey... it's artistic license.

And yes, that was intended to be Victor Krum who protested at Ron and Hermione's wedding. For no reason, really, other than it amused me.

3. White Christmas:

I've extrapolated the character of Armando Dippet from the brief paragraphs about his portrait in Order of the Phoenix. If I'm lucky, Ms. Rowling won't contradict me in the next two novels.

The Volsung Saga is one of the oldest surviving pieces of Norse myth, found in closely-related versions in German, as well. The Norse believed in shape-changers, in wolf-men and bear-men (the word berserk, for instance, comes from Norse for "bear shirt"), and in the Volsung saga, two of the characters spend a great deal of time as wolves, harassing the household of their enemy.

The Morphus Equations are my own invention. It seems clear to me that an animagus does something more than just a transfiguration spell; the magic actually seems to become an intrinsic part of the mage. Sirius Black, for instance, can transform into Snuffles without a wand, and even under the pressure of the presence of dementors in Azkaban.

4. Valentine's Day Rain:

Balcoin college takes its name from Marie Balcoin, a French witch who was burned to death in 1598, in Paris.

Gridpipe, the seeker for the Wimbourne Wasps, is an original character borrowed from the amazing "Or Die Trying: The Cho Chang Story" by FanFiction's own MonkeyMouse. It's not stealing; it's an homage.

5. Leafing Out:

The witch who flies overhead, wearing a bow, and riding a street-sweeper's broom, is of course a reference to the end of _Kiki's Delivery Service_, a wonderful movie about a young witch.

Professor Xuan and Merka Quintaile are characters borrowed from my role-playing group, from when we played our Hogwarts game. Professor Xuan's line was originally written by my friend Steve, who gets the shout-out for this one.

The Dutch wizards of Copenhagen are another reference to MonkeyMouse's work.

6. A Rain to Wash Away the Sins of the World:

A lot of this is simply my conjecture, based on the facts Ms. Rowling presents in the first five books. We know that Dumbledore has led an exceptionally long life; that he was Nicholas Flammel's friend and partner, and that he regards death as simply "the next great adventure." Why, then, would he take the elixir of life?

Anderson shelters were designed by British Civil Defense, to distribute population, instead of concentrating them in large shelters. Those who had gardens could put a shelter in them, and be in the shelter faster than if they had to go to a large, central shelter. And yes, the Blitz reached as far north as Scotland.

Eton and Harrow are British public schools. Two words about the words "public school" seem to be in order, here. In America, "public school" means a school paid for by the government, which anyone who lives in the right neighborhood can... indeed, is compelled to... attend. In British usage, however, a "public school" is simply one where the admissions requirements are not limited by arbitrary factors... you don't have to be a member of a given church, you don't have to have red hair, or whatever else. These are, in fact, what Americans would call "private schools," for which the family of the student pays for the student's attendance. Many of them are boarding schools. Eton and Harrow are two of the most exclusive, and presumably, two of the best.

7. Of Wands and Men:

Sirius' "To Pee, or Not To Pee," soliloquy is borrowed from the amazing shoeboxproject on LiveJournal, which has heavily influenced my thinking about the Marauders.

The ten-foot snow phallus was built in the winter of 2003-2004 at Northern Arizona University, where I attend classes. I had nothing to do with it, though it made me laugh, later.

My thoughts about reproductive magic were included here in part to answer things that I've read in other fanfics. It seems to me that anti-fertility and anti-disease charms and potions would be something witches learned fairly early, though perhaps under the table.

Ursula K. LeGuin is a science fiction / fantasy writer who wrote one of the most famous series of books about wizards, the _Earthsea_ books. She's from California, and Catalina Island is off the California coast.

I introduce Professor Keaton in this segment. Like some of those who have reviewed, I have been bothered by the apparent lack of a language teacher at Hogwarts, so here I've addressed that. I can understand why Ms. Rowling wouldn't include one... composition seems very mundane, and it would likely just be another character she'd have to keep track of... but I think that words and language are a kind of magic, all on their own. The ancient Norse thought so highly of writing that Odin hung impaled on the World Tree, himself sacrificed to himself, for nine days to learn the runes and the art of writing.

8. An Unbearable Precision of Being:

More of Professor Keaton, who we see here as being something of a sadly romantic figure, mostly unable to handle the world outside of his books. No, I don't know anyone like this; why do you ask?

9. Girls and Boys:

The Belgian sleuth, of course, is Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. Ms. Christie is practically the mother of the modern detective story.

There's so much slash-fic out there, I felt I had to say two words about the subject. And, knowing more than one gender dysphoric individual in the real world, I saw at once that transfiguration magic would be a dream come true for them.

My mother says this is her least favorite segment, because it brings the issues of sex and gender into the otherwise "clean" world of Harry Potter. All I can say is that these are issues that are important in my world, and I think they'd be important at Hogwarts, as well. After all, Hogwarts takes children from the ages of 11 to 18 or so, and these are the years when we discover sexuality and the various implications of gender.

When I was a child, my mother and I had the discussion about where words come from. We decided that cheese toast was, henceforth, to be known as snicker-snockers. Thirty years later, to me, it still is.

I never wrote a love letter to a teacher. I have, however, over the years, felt deep lust for more than one. Usually Math teachers; I don't know why.

10. Gun Wizard:

A friend was saying, one day, that she wished "he needed killing" was still a defense admissible in a court of law. I pointed out that it hadn't been, since Judge Roy Bean's time. The rest of this sort of grew organically out of that.

Besides, I like the idea that Professor McGonagall spends her old age reading trashy novels.

11. First Night:

Please see above for my comments regarding the relative ages of Hagrid and McGonagall.

Wooster and Yaxley are references to the Wooster and Jeeves novels of Mr. Pelham G. Wodehouse. If you like the Harry Potter novels, you should try P. G. Wodehouse. His writing is amazingly funny, and he evokes a gentle era which, alas, never truly existed.

Yes, I did postulate a Tonks / Lupin match. I think it would work for the same reason that James and Sirius were such good friends with Remus... the balance of forces; the yin and the yang of it all.

The song Minerva hums is a filking of an actual song that was popular in the 1920s, "47 Ginger-Headed Sailors."

And yes, Jain Doe is another original character recycled from a role playing game.

12. Insomnia

Christiaan Hyugens was an actual Dutch physicist who discovered Saturn's rings, as well as coming up with the principal of entrainment.

The Tickes family, and Minerva's watch, are references to Jan. McNeville's "The Family Clock" fic, on this site. Highly recommended.

Shakespeare, so far as I am aware, was the first English writer to refer to sleep as the brother of death. In his amazing comic book series (now collected as graphic novels), Neil Gaiman reinforces this, making Dream and Death two of the basic forces of the universe.

As I never attended an English public school, my details of morning life at Hogwarts are based on my experiences in American college dormitories. If they strike you as false, I can only apologize. We can only write what we know, after all, or what we can reasonably extrapolate from what we know.

How would a headmaster's portrait be updated? Why... by magic, of course!

13. 100, Not Out

The title is a reference to Cricket. (See note on segment 1, above). When a batsman has made a hundred points, he is said to have "made his century." Not out refers to having made that score without being, well, out... unable to continue batting.

Potterphiles who examine the names of the Quidditch teams will find some Easter eggs.

14. A Fighting Chance

Kendo is a real Japanese sport, akin to European fencing, and is much as professor Coppersmith described it, to the uninitiated. It's also fun to watch, and more fun to play.

A friend of mine flatters me that I am good at non sequiturs which turn out to be no such thing. Minerva's question to Coppersmith is, I think, an example of that. Am I guilty of placing some of my own character in McGonagall? Perhaps... but isn't that what writing is about?

15. An Age of Isolation:

This mirrors some of my own concerns about the world we live in, about how instant messaging and email are in fact not drawing individuals closer together, but creating a kind of isolation. I'd like to get a couple of friends and go down to the pub, but all of my friends are in far-off places, and I can't.

And yes... I have shame attacks. Not that I've done anything on the level of, say, a politician about which to be ashamed, but I have them, none the less.

16. Families of all Stripes

In choosing to pair off Harry and Ginny, I do have a rationale. Namely, by marrying Ginny, Harry gets what he's always wanted most: family, and plenty of it. As for the West Indies... well, why not? They're warm, they're sunny, and it's a holiday!

17. Change

Honestly, I wrote this as a filler chapter, because I needed to post something, and I wasn't quite ready to write the final one. My mother, who was retiring from teaching after many years, however, said that it touched her a great deal, so I've left it in this amended edition.

18. The Next Great Adventure

I think this chapter speaks for itself. And yes... my writing of the death scene was heavily influenced by Richard Bach's _Jonathan Livingston Seagull._

I wrote this story about a year ago, while I was doing nothing in particular with my summer holiday from college. Now, doing nothing in particular with this summer holiday, either, I found the time to edit, amend, and annotate it. I hope that all of you who read it have as much fun with it as I did; that you can forgive the places where I took license, and simply see it as an homage to an amazing writer... Ms. J. K. Rowling.


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